LS Re: another question


Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Wed, 3 Dec 1997 15:18:58 +0100


Hello Ken and LS.

The Libet Experiment continued...................................
I was about to write a heavy piece with lots of learned talk,
references and quotations, but it is not necessary, it will not shed
more light on the SOM/MOQ controversy.

As I told in the first entry did Libet find that our consciousness
lags behind (an evoked electric potential in the brain), but it was
followed by another series of experiment that revealed even more
disturbing facts.

The time lag from the electric "evoked potential" of the brain till
the person 'decided' was .3 seconds which is a considerable compared
to reaction time (for instance between sitting down on a tack - or a
hot stove - and jumping). Anyway, just the fact that something went
on BEFORE the conscious decision is simply outrageous, and it
released much ado in the scientific/philosophical circles.

However, Libet went on with his experimenting. He was allowed to do
things on people who for other reasons had their brain exposed and
found that stimuli directly on the brain needed half a second
duration for the patient to become conscious of it. And yet: a
stimulus on the skin (on top of one hand f.ex.) was registered as
simultaneous (a fact we all know). How is this? It takes half a
second (a very long time) to become aware of things - if the brain
is touched (at the spot that corresponds to the top of th hand), but
if/when it reaches consciousness it is FELT as if taking place
before! Exactly as much time as to be felt simultaneous with a signal
travelling from the spot to the brain (.02 second)

Libet found that sense of touch is forwarded SUBJECTIVELY IN TIME to
be sensed as taking place exactly when it took place!. There is of
course an autonomous neural system that makes us jump from tacks and
hot stoves and such, but Libet's findings has a b ring on that too.

What I will add for my own account is that this is a biological
equivalent to Quantum Physics. When the mental workings are looked at
closely it also dissolves into so- called subjectiveness, but as it
is mind itself that is scrutinized the subjective term is not valid.
Admittedly Libet used it, and a lot of other sub-words in
addition, but if such a manoeuvre is activated to fool
consciousness into believing that it initiates actions and feels
touches when it takes place, then it must be a level deeper than
orrdinary subjectivity (the subject/object/supersubject trinity
again!).
         No, the SOM is incapable of explaining it, but the MOQ
- which is built upon the very idea of a ladder of levels - can, at
least do I feel its potential here. The Intellectual level (in the
consciousness sense) is the last instance to be notified, but a lot o
"subjective" tricking is needed for it to look as the initiator and
arbiter of things. Okay, it CAN interrupt and override lower level's
workings (as can the Social level), but then one becomes awkward and
"self-conscious". (I know it only too well!)

Ken. Outside (objective) agents are not at work (unless the
occult is invoked), and what is subjective is supposed to be in the
mind - and mind is supposed to be consciousness. Perhaps the
psychologists, including Freud and Jung , have been at odds with SOM
all the time (the ego-superego-id trinity), but have not been taken
seriously until a "hard" scientist went to work on it.

If anyone managed to read this. Thanks.

Bo.

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